Cherisse Moe

Nicholaus Williams, known to the mu­sic world as Trinidad James, has nev­er been one to fol­low a pre­dictable script. The At­lanta-based rap­per, best known for his 2012 break­out hit ‘All Gold Every­thing’, is now lay­ing the tracks for his first-ever so­ca al­bum, a body of work he says re­con­nects him with his her­itage.

“So in my trav­els around the world to com­plete this al­bum, it on­ly made sense to start at home with my peo­ple,” James re­vealed to Guardian Me­dia in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view this week. “Lo­cal is who dic­tates what’s cool and what’s not. What’s cur­rent and what’s not ‘IT’ any­more. I had to touch the road.”

But James is look­ing at a much big­ger pic­ture than just a col­lec­tion of songs. “My main goal is to win a Gram­my for Trinidad with this al­bum and bring down the road on a Gram­my truck.”

The re­al work kicked off at a one-day writ­ing camp on Feb­ru­ary 19 at the Ch­agua­nas stu­dio of singer/song­writer/pro­duc­er 1stK­lase (Klase Gon­za­les). James hand-picked a tal­ent­ed squad ready to work, in­clud­ing Preedy (Akeem Chance), Jim­my Oc­to­ber (L’shun Em­manuel), Brook­lyn De­cent (Nico­lai Ram­jass), and Su­pa Youth (Joshua Sal­cedo). “What was amaz­ing is I’m usu­al­ly the one pour­ing in­to peo­ple and push­ing their lim­its. The won­der­ful ex­pe­ri­ence with my camp for my so­ca al­bum is that I got to be on the re­ceiv­ing end of this push and love. My team was ab­solute­ly as­ton­ish­ing.”

Asked whether the ses­sion was a one-off or a long-term in­vest­ment in the genre, James, a mul­ti-hy­phen­ate who has ex­pand­ed his brand in­to film and fash­ion, said he want­ed to build a com­mu­ni­ty with lo­cal tal­ent “so that more for­eign la­bels and artistes wan­na come sup­port our mu­si­cal su­per­heroes.”

The al­bum, still un­ti­tled, aims to con­nect the di­as­po­ra with his ex­pe­ri­ences grow­ing up away from home. “There are many things that I think dif­fer­ent­ly on and don’t un­der­stand with Trinidad,” James notes. “The sound of my al­bum will feel like a well-trav­elled Tri­ni who loves his coun­try but didn’t grow up in Trinidad. There are sto­ries of love, of code switch­ing and even songs about some of my favourite foods and drinks like cur­rants roll and pun­cheon.”

Any lo­cal or in­ter­na­tion­al guest fea­tures on the al­bum? James teased, “There will be col­lab­o­ra­tions—who, we don’t know yet, but stay tuned.” He gave a de­fin­i­tive an­swer for what he be­lieves will fi­nal­ly push so­ca over the edge glob­al­ly: “Drake!”

James flew back to the Unit­ed States the day af­ter the camp, but his ini­tia­tive has left a last­ing mark on those in­volved. “It was a pret­ty dope ex­pe­ri­ence for me,” Jim­my shares. “A lot of tal­ent­ed mu­si­cians were in one room so ideas were just flow­ing. James knew the vibes he was look­ing for as well. He came pre­pared and we were ready to work. I’ve known James for a while so it was dope to fi­nal­ly work with him in stu­dio.”

Preedy echoes sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, not­ing that the ses­sion was a game-chang­er. “I def­i­nite­ly en­joyed be­ing part of it and con­tribut­ing to cre­at­ing some good mu­sic; it’s al­ways fun work­ing with oth­er artistes. I’m re­al­ly strong with hooks and cho­rus­es, so I tried to lay down as much melo­di­ous cho­rus­es as pos­si­ble and just add to the en­er­gy.”

He al­so called on fel­low en­ter­tain­ers to ful­ly in­vest in their crafts. “Learn­ing is a con­stant jour­ney. No mat­ter the genre, whether it’s so­ca, gospel, or what­ev­er—ex­plore the cre­ative and the be­hind-the-scenes side of the mu­sic to bet­ter un­der­stand the en­tire process.”

So when do we get to hear the al­bum? The wait won’t be long. James’ first sin­gle drops by the end of 2026, with the full al­bum planned for 2027.